


The Sea and the Rhythm

by Lirillith



Category: Suikoden III
Genre: F/M, First Time, Implied Sexual Content, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2790062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We should find a way to do this in daylight."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea and the Rhythm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quicksilver_ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/gifts).



Chris thought of the rune as ice, but that reflected her own position, not its nature. Water meant the sea and its tides, the flow of rivers, the protection of the womb; water was as warm and primal an element as a human could know. 

Sometimes she thought the rune itself set her apart, even more than her station did; that there was a thin layer of ice separating her from the rest. That there always had been, the rune marking her out before she ever came to claim it. Perhaps ice was in her nature rather than the rune’s.

She generally thought of the physical act in all the distant terms of her place in the knighthood and Zexen society; she thought of it as “the physical act,” to begin with. She thought of court-martial reports, of foot soldiers and knights discharged or flogged or hanged for varying degrees of “indecent conduct,” of the risk of assault should she be captured, of terms like “the marital bed” and “sexual congress.” And while she was familiar with the rapturous allusions of the stage and the vague but fervid euphemisms of faintly embarrassing novels, her own private thoughts, late at night, were only vague longings and impressions, unconnected to anything printed on a page or neatly penned on a report. 

And the reality was so very different, both less elegant or impressive and more intimate and ridiculous than she’d imagined. There was no layer of ice to be broken through to let her touch another, in the end. The first time she kissed him, the only thing between them was a few finger-widths of air, chilled by the wind blowing in from the ocean; cool enough that the warmth of his breath was noticeable, but not so cold as to make it visible. 

And then their teeth bumped, and they broke apart, each feeling their mouths gingerly, but each insisting at once, _no, I’m fine, are you?_ And then they’d both laughed.

The human body was such an inconvenient and silly thing, swathed in clothing to hide all its copious fluids and odd markings and tender, sensitive spots, and while she knew she was considered beautiful, sometimes she thought people only thought so because they only saw her at a distance. A wound stitched closed was grotesque no matter how handsome the face above it.

But Salome, here in the dark, seemed fascinated with her every scar and blemish: the slash on her arm from sword practice when she was thirteen, the fading bruise on her ribs where a Tinto battle-axe had crushed a dent into her armor weeks before, the birthmark on her hip. For her part, she seemed to be afflicted with a certain physical shyness. It wasn’t her nudity that worried her, but touching his. And in a way, she felt the need to let him take the lead in this, to make it clear to both of them that he chose this with no influence or duress from his captain.

Yet at the same time, she refused to be the passive maiden, in any context, and she could overcome her uncertainty enough to indulge at least some of her tactile curiosity, enough to undo her braids because it seemed fitting, and to respond to the heightened desire in his voice. “We should find a way to do this in daylight,” she said, and she could hear the laughter as he said “I wholeheartedly concur.”


End file.
